Problem based learning: application to technology education in three countries

Abstract

An increasing variety of professional educational and training disciplines are now problem based (eg, medicine, nursing, engineering, community health), and they may have a corresponding variety of educational objectives. However, they all have in common the use of problems in the instructional sequence. The problems may be as diverse as a mechanical predicament, an unexplained phenomena, or patient symptoms. Technology education in secondary schools is undergoing a period of significant change in many countries. It is therefore imperative that technology teacher education adopt not only the technologies that have been identified as being important, but also incorporate appropriate methodologies for the instruction of these technologies. PBL offers a number of relevant features to technology education and it is because of these that the project outlined in this paper has been developed.